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What's the weirdest thing in english? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by nerdhd@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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Is it the definite article?

So, to reiterate, when it comes to when to use the "the", the only universal rule is this:

Some rules (such as the two you've given) might hold 95%+ of the time, but unfortunately there may be weird and arbitrary exceptions that you'll just have to learn.

Source: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/365074/the-use-of-the-definite-article-with-the-names-of-museums-art-galleries-etc/365083#365083

Is it capitalization?

Because a cursory look at the Wikipedia page for capitalization also reveals that it is not without its quirks.

For example:

planets and other celestial bodies: "Jupiter", "the Crab Nebula"; and "the Earth", "the Sun", or "the Moon" should be capitalized according to the International Astronomical Union based on its manual of style, but style guides may suggest differently.[19]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_in_English

Is it the fact the way something is written almost has no bearing on how it's pronounced?

Please tell me your thoughts.

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[-] Dookieman12@piefed.social 44 points 4 weeks ago

IMO, the weirdest thing about English is something every speaker does but probably never thinks about.

Whenever multiple adjectives describe a single noun, there's a particular order in which they must go. If you have big tractor that's also green, you would call it a "big green tractor" but you would never call it a "green big tractor". Not only does it sound wrong, it's grammatically incorrect.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/one-weird-trick-for-adjective-order

[-] pwnicholson@lemmy.world 21 points 4 weeks ago

100% this. No one is ever taught it as a rule in school. You're never tested over it. But all native English speakers intuitively know it.

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 14 points 4 weeks ago

Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.

Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: How To Turn the Perfect English Phrase

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I always thought the celestial bodies thing was just another case of proper nouns. Jupiter is always capitalized because it’s a proper name.

But “the Moon” can be either. “the Moon” is the proper name of Earths natural satellite so should be capitalized, but “the moon” is a description of any planetary body’s natural satellite so should NOT be

Similar for “the Sun”. “the Sun” is the proper name of Earths star, but “the sun” is any solar system’s star. I like that in so much science fiction they’ve figured this out and use a distinct proper name, “Sol”

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 weeks ago

One I always find weird is how often we reuse the exact same word with the same spelling and pronunciation to mean wildly different things. For example, the word 'jam' can mean:

  • a fruit preserve
  • to play music
  • heavy traffic
  • a door that won't open
  • to cram something into something else
  • a difficult situation

Or 'saw', which can be to look at something in the past tense or to cut wood. The word 'run' apparently has over 600 different meanings!

We also have contronyms, which is when a word also means the opposite of itself. For example 'dust', which can mean to add dust or remove it. Or 'left', which can mean remaining ("I only have three left") or departing ("They left.")

[-] Sludgeyy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

A door can get jammed on the door jamb

[-] crapwittyname@feddit.uk 2 points 4 weeks ago

I remember my English teacher telling me the word "set" was the worst example of this, with over 200 definitions in the unabridged Oxford dictionary.

[-] qevlarr@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Chinese would like a word

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Or ‘left’, which can mean remaining (“I only have three left”) or departing (“They left.”)

I remember learning Spanish in school. Discovering the difference between "dejar" and "irse" drove this home for me. Dejar - to leave [a thing somewhere.] Irse - to leave [a place.] ("Salir" also works for the latter meaning, but it can mean more of "to go out.")

"Ella se fue y dejó el libro en la mesa." ("She left and left the book on the table.")

Speaking of "driving (a point) home," I'd say one of the weirdest/most interesting quirks of English is how many idioms we rely on.

[-] dgriffith@aussie.zone 8 points 4 weeks ago

You can verb pretty much any noun you like and get away with it, when used in such a manner the verbnoun takes on the typical action of the noun.

"Gunned down" is an example.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

It's possible to do so in other languages as well, we rarely need to because we have other words for things though.

[-] Cheesus@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 weeks ago

In my experience, nouns and verbs are generally strictly separate concepts in Romance languages, making this not viable, although there are exceptions.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

You might not be a native to Roman languages, but it's very easy to "vebify" a word for natives just like you would in English.

Tell me a noun you think can be verbed in English but not in Roman languages and I'll give you an example of how it looks like.

[-] farmgineer@nord.pub 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I would say orthography and/or the great vowel shift. Or, further, that it's very weird as Germanic languages go. Or, even further, the mix of old Norse and the various Saxon/jute/angle languages before the Normans came along (itself Norman french with old Norse admixture). Then throw various Celtic languages on that mess

Edit: completely left out those pesky Romans as well

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

The more I learn other languages, the more annoyed I get at the Great Vowel Shift in English. We could've been aligned with so many other languages, but no, we just had to be different.

It's wild, since English has such a vast vowel inventory that we can pronounce a lot of words in other languages, but since we read letters differently, many people end up with accents that don't need to exist. Consider people pronouncing Spanish words with English vowels, even though all standard Spanish vowel sounds are already part of the standard English repertoire.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

Probably spelling, but there's one quirk in English that makes it so you can build the arguably weirdest sentence in any language. Here's the short version and explanation for people unaware of the 3 meanings of the word (which I'll use 3 different spellings to make it easier to understand):

  • Buffalo is a city in USA
  • a buffalo is another name for an animal also known as a bison
  • To BUFFALO means to bother, or bully.

So a Buffalo buffalo is a Bison from the city of Buffalo. If a Bison from Buffalo were to bother another Bison from Buffalo, you get the common example of this phrase which is Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo which means Buffalo bison BOTHERS Buffalo bison. You can add an extra Buffalo at the start to make it a headline of a newspaper telling you where this happened, but that only gives you Buffalo, Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo....

But we can make it better. See, in English you can add specifiers to a noun, the way we're doing with Buffalo to specify this is a Bison from Buffalo, but the specification can be a full sentence. For example if we wanted to say that specify that the bison is known to bother other bisons you can call him a "bison bully" bison, or even if he's from Buffalo and only bullies other bisons from Buffalo he's a Buffalo "Buffalo bison bully" bison, or a Buffalo "Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO" buffalo.

Cool, so if a Bison from Buffalo known for bullying other bisons from Buffalo is bullying yet another Buffalo bison you can say that a "Buffalo Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo".... But what if the bison it's bullying is also known to bully other bisons from buffalo? Then Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo buffalo

But our bison might actually EXCLUSIVELY bully bisons that bully other bisons, so he's a Buffalo bison BULLY BULLY, and if he's from the city of Buffalo he's a Buffalo Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO BUFFALO. So if our heroic bison made a mistake and bullied another Bison who only bullies bullies then: Buffalo Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO BUFFALO buffalo BUFFALO Buffalo Buffalo buffalo BUFFALO BUFFALO

And you can keep making the sentence infinitely long by specifying that tach bison in the story is a Buffalo bison Bully bison.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

The disparity between written English and its pronunciation. Identically written words represented with vastly different sounds, and no real and consistent system whatsoever.

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I agree. I like it (the spelling often shows the history of the word, relationships between words) but for an allegedly phonetic system it's nonsense. Not sure it's worse than French, but Spanish is so phonetic I can read aloud stuff I don't even understand!

I learned to read as I was learning to talk, more like a language than a skill - kids learning in school are taught phonics, and I would despair if that was how I was taught.

Once. Really? The word Wonss is spelled Once?

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Mandatory reference here: The Chaos (Poem)

[-] thymos@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 weeks ago

I think what is exceptional for English is that negation and forming a question require a modal verb. You can say "I love apples" but not "*I not love apples", nor "*Love I apples?". This is rare in a language. (An exception for negation could be "Apples, I love not", but this does not sound like everyday speech.)

[-] forestbeasts@pawb.social 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Fun fact: "Love I apples?" and "Apples, I love not" are how German works, and English used to be like that (back when it was still turning into English)!

(edit: actually oops it'd be more "I love apples not", see also "she loves me / she loves me not" – V2 word order, verb goes second)

-- Frost

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

“Apples, I love not”

It's funny how learning different grammar can change the way you think. I read this and think, "Ah yes, perfectly normal Japanese word order. Topic first, with verb + negation at the end."

I have to be careful when I talk sometimes, because my mental grammar structure is all over the place now.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 5 points 4 weeks ago

I vote spelling. English spelling makes less sense than French or Danish and they take mothereffing liberties as well. No naturally occurring, alphabet using language will probably score perfect on that but I suspect English will be in the relegation zone of that table.

[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 5 points 4 weeks ago

I don't think articles, definite or indefinite are the weirdest things about English, if only because other languages have the same features.

There have to be weirder things that are specific to this one language, but it's hard to find something that isn't shared by any other language, especially not the closely related ones. German goes one step further with the whole capitalisation thing, for example, where all nouns are capitalised, not just those that are names.

Perhaps we could go for how vowels all become, or at least move towards schwa in unstressed positions. That's the vowel at the end of "the" when unstressed and before a consonant. (German has some of this with final -e (and to some extent, the same with older French pronunciation), but it's not necessarily the same thing going on there.)

Consonant aspiration might be another oddity. Aspiration depends on position in a word in English and doesn't hold any semantic or grammatical meaning, but in other languages, an aspirated consonant can completely change the meaning of a word. I think Korean is one such language. They even have different letters for the different sounds.

If you don't know what aspiration is, it's the burst of air that follows some consonants. English speakers generally don't even know they're doing it. The often-used example is "pin" versus "spin", where the leading "p" of "pin" has far more air after it than it does in "spin".

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Aspiration depends on position in a word in English and doesn’t hold any semantic or grammatical meaning, but in other languages, an aspirated consonant can completely change the meaning of a word.

It reminds me of how Hindi/Urdu use v and w. Which sound is produced depends on where it is in a word, but to native speakers, both v and w may sound the same. That's why Hindustani ESL speakers tend to switch between the two in ways that don't make sense to native English speakers.

It helps me wrap my mind around it to think of how English has two different ways of pronouncing L - there's "light" L at the beginning of words (love, listen, like.) Then there's "dark" L used at the end or sometimes in the middle (full, ball, visible.) The word "little" provides an example of both types (and if you pronounce it with a glottal stop for the "tt", such as in a Cockney accent, the word is basically "light L, glottal stop, dark L.")

Of course, aspiration itself also works as a way to understand it, since aspirated sounds make a difference in Hindustani, but English spelling treats them interchangeably. However, that difference is too hard for many of us to distinguish, so I find that comparing L sounds is easier for English speakers to recognize as a comparison.

[-] No_Money_Just_Change@feddit.org 5 points 4 weeks ago

Dearest creature in creation, The weirdest part is pronunciation...

[-] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 4 points 4 weeks ago

Is it the fact the way something is written almost has no bearing on how it's pronounced?

For me as someone who speaks english as a 2nd language this is definitely a big one

Though on the topic of the definite article, as a kid I found articles in general to be weird as my native language has none, so there were just these "untranslatable" words in front of some nouns for some reason

[-] nerdhd@lemmy.world 7 points 4 weeks ago

Though on the topic of the definite article, as a kid I found articles in general to be weird as my native language has none, so there were just these "untranslatable" words in front of some nouns for some reason

Funny you mention this, cuz I have been trying to learn japanese lately and it not having articles is a big obstacle for me.

[-] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 4 points 4 weeks ago

You know, I never thought about the opposite being a problem lol.

It's mildly interesting to think about

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 weeks ago

Per formal linguistics, it's "respectively".

Like: Bob, Alicia, and Siobhan are a teacher, plumber, and electrician, respectively.

We know this means Bob is a teacher and Siobhan is an electrician, but trying to write rules for how English works that account for this usage is thorny.

[-] Dookieman12@piefed.social 7 points 4 weeks ago

Let me try writing a rule for it.

"Given two lists, the word "respectively" indicates the n-th item in each list corresponds to the n-th item in the other list."

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 weeks ago

It's not that it's hard to write a rule for "respectively". It's that it needs its own rule, specifically. The general rules don't cover it.

[-] loppy@fedia.io 1 points 4 weeks ago

I don't understand what the issue is/could be. "Respectively" is clearly functioning syntactically as an adverb, and the sentence "Bob, Alicia, and Siobhan are a teacher, plumber, and electrician" without the "respectively" is a valid sentence where its two noun phrases happen to be conjunctions of other nouns.

A sentence like "Bob, Alicia, and Siobhan are a teacher, plumber, electrician, and astronaut, respectively" is equally valid syntactically, it's just invalid semantically.

[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

That officially you have "whom" on the books, but then if anyone uses it, they are seen as weird.

[-] luthis@lemmy.nz 3 points 4 weeks ago

I vote for standardisation. So it's 'wierd.' I before e. It's more Germanic that way too. Food, moon, and good all pronounced the same way. Etc

The wierdest thing? That it's used in so many places instead of good, solid, consistent Latin

[-] zikzak025@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

English was screwed by the advent of the printing press.

From the beginning of the renaissance up to the 1700's, English underwent a vowel shift which saw a lot of words change pronunciation. When the printing press arrived in England in the late 1400's, there was a push to set standard spelling. But because the printing press arrived while the vowel shift was still ongoing, the new pronunciation of some words was revised with updated spelling (consistent with other words at the time) but other words would receive new pronunciations after their spelling was already set in stone.

If a language undergoes a vowel shift after its spelling is standardized, the phonetic rules remain mostly intact because they will trend towards changing consistently. If a language completes a vowel shift before its spelling is standardized, then the new spelling will just reflect its current phonetics. English was unlucky enough to be locked in time during its blunder years.

[-] zlatiah@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Personally I definitely think it's the pronunciation, which is... self explanatory. Other languages have weird grammar rules too, but even French pronunciation is more consistent 😭

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Which makes it funny when I hear fellow English speakers knock on French spelling. At least I can reasonably assume what a written French word is supposed to sound like. English doesn't give us that luxury.

[-] hexdream@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

Im just going to say "The English themselves" , and leave it at that.

[-] agentTeiko@piefed.social 1 points 4 weeks ago

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 weeks ago

It's that familiar feeling...how do you say...?

[-] Canopyflyer@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

Gallagher on the English Language.

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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